MPs and peers set to vote overnight to get Rwanda Bill through

Rishi Sunak has consistently said he wants the deportation flights to start this spring – UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA

Ministers are preparing to force MPs and peers to sit through the night to get Rishi Sunak’s Safety of Rwanda Bill through Parliament on Monday.

After being criticised for failing to “run the votes round the clock”, the Prime Minister has ordered party managers to ensure that there are no more delays after peers blocked the Rwanda Bill for a fourth time on Wednesday.

The hardline tactic emerged after Downing Street had appeared to drop Mr Sunak’s target of getting the first Rwanda deportation flights off the ground in the spring because of the delays to the legislation.

Parliamentary “ping-pong” has spanned nearly three weeks, starting just before the two-week Easter recess. It threatens to equal the record of five rounds of to-ing and fro-ing between the two Houses, set by Labour’s Prevention of Terrorism Act in the early 2000s.

If the Lords continue to refuse to back down, it will see the Bill being sent between the two Houses for votes within minutes. On Thursday, Downing Street indicated there would be no concessions, while Labour is preparing to whip its peers to continue to back the amendments if there is no Government compromise.

Mr Sunak’s official spokesman said: “Our intention is to get the whole thing done on Monday. I’ll leave it to others to set out the process. Conversations are ongoing, but our intention is to get this done.”

The source of the standoff has been boiled down to two amendments demanding an exemption from deportation for Afghans who worked with the UK military and tighter checks on whether Rwanda remains safe for asylum seekers.

The spokesman refused four times to say whether the target would be met. Asked whether spring remained the target date for flights, the spokesman said: “The timetable that we previously set out was factoring in plenty of time for parliamentary debate. But obviously the Bill has continued to be delayed.

“We’re working at pace to ensure these flights leave as soon as possible, but it’s now incumbent on the Lords to pass this Bill so that we can get flights off as soon as possible.”

Mr Sunak has consistently said he wants the deportation flights to start this spring, but migrants earmarked for the first flights cannot be notified until the Bill gains Royal Assent. There is then a legal appeal process required by law for the migrants, scheduled to take four to eight weeks.

On Thursday, Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, suggested that RAF planes could be used to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Asked on Sky News whether the Air Force would be used in the absence of a private airline, he said: “It is a whole Government effort. We will do whatever we need to do to make sure that we can get these flights off, whether they are chartered flights or any other type of flight.”

A man protests against the Rwanda scheme outside Parliament this week – Vuk Valcic/Shutterstock

One option would be to use Voyager planes, which are leased from AirTanker, an aviation company that provides 14 Airbus A330s to the RAF for specialist tasks including transporting Ukrainian soldiers to the UK for training.

Airlines have previously refused to sign contracts when approached by the Home Office because of concerns about the potential damage to their reputations by being involved in the Rwanda scheme. RwandAir, the national airline, is among companies to have rejected approaches to participate.

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has said the Government’s Rwanda scheme would not work regardless of how asylum seekers travelled to the east African country.

Asked whether he thought RAF aircraft should be used to deport asylum seekers, he told broadcasters: “I think the Government should be concentrating on how they are going to stop small boats from arriving in the first place rather than wasting time and money, taxpayers’ money, on a gimmick, however they travel to Rwanda.

“There are tens of thousands of people waiting to have their claims processed and the Government is talking about removing a few hundred. More people came in one day last week than this entire scheme will remove under its current provisions.”

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